The power of kindness has profound effect on every aspect of your life and I know that personally in my life. In the last 12 months I have produced over 50 hours of free self help/development and hypnosis audios which reached over 150,000 people and led to my work being listened to someone every single minute around the world. In fact my business model is all based around giving and helping as many people  as possible. Now I do not say this to impress you, but instead to tell you how kindness has a powerful effect on you no matter how small or big the act is.

Personally, the emails, twitter interactions and Facebook comments from how my work has helped electrify my life to one of overwhelm of what we can do when we help someone without the expectation of anything in return.

But how does kindness effect you personally?

Psychologically:

When we give help to someone we know or even a stranger in the street, it causes us to consciously and unconscious feel a sense of gratitude. Gratitude or being thankful for what we have or the thanks we receive from a kind gesture makes our mind look for things that we can be happy for. It also gives us a sense of meaning and even feelings of self worth, which develops our personal self image and identity adding to our confidence. So combining both gratitude/thanks and also the sense of self worth/meaning puts our mindset on to the positives of life and gives us a sense of wellbeing and contentment. Bearing in mind wherever out intention goes, energy flows and expands, when our focus is on kindness knowing all the psychological aspects we get from it we are ultimately attracting more happiness and wellbeing and searching for more of it in a way that does not produce scarcity or lack, but in fact abundance.

Biologically:

The biological aspects are simply amazing for your health. On a biochemical level it is believed that it elevates the levels of dopamine which gives us the natural high. Dr David Hamilton mentions that kindness also gives us healthier hearts due to emotional warmth that produces the hormone oxytocin that causes a set of realises that expands blood vessels which reduces blood pressure. Healthier hearts means a healthy longer life. But when you take in all the psychological aspects of kindness, our mind and body is completely interconnected, the body listens to the thoughts and feelings we experience and we know that simply by what we see around us. Depressive people have a low lethargic energy, happy people have an abundance of energy. So when we are kind to others and in return we feel that sense of meaning, happiness, contentment and higher self esteem our body to feels that. The effects of kindness is extremely powerful on our biological health.

Others:

Being kind to others gives the person you are helping all those benefits too, you know personally how it feels when someone is kind to you and then it makes you want to help others too. Its a form of 'Paying it forward' when someone does something nice to you, you want to share and spread that kindness to other people in your life and then those you help, wish to do the same to others….an never ending exchange of kindness spreads with each act of kindness given.

But wait!

I feel we have drifted onto just being kind to others..kindness is not just about being kind to others. One thing I think we forget is the wonderful you. We are rarely taught to give ourselves the credit and kindness we are due. Society does not teach us this either. But I dare you to spend a week or better still a month of taking 10 minutes of of your day thinking about our own qualities and being kind to yourself. When you are kind to yourself you actually get all the benefits of the psychological and biological benefits as if you were helping others and the more you do it, the happier, healthier and giving you are.

In summary, kindness is powerful in healing others and even yourself, making you and others happier and healthier both psychologically and biologically.

Thats why I love giving my work for free in written from, audio and video because I know it helps you, me and others and that seems to be a win/win/win situation leading to a inner contentment rarely found in anything else I do.

Be kind, be you.

Your friend

Joseph